from the Cows to the Dairy-maids, which
spreads through the farm until most of the cattle and domestics feel
its unpleasant consequences. This disease has obtained the name of
the Cow Pox. It appears on the nipples of the Cows in the form of
irregular pustules. At their first appearance they are commonly of a
palish blue, or rather of a colour somewhat approaching to livid, and
are surrounded by an erysipelatous inflammation. These pustules,
unless a timely remedy be applied, frequently degenerate into
phagedenic ulcers, which prove extremely troublesome[2]. The animals
become indisposed, and the secretion of milk is much lessened.
Inflamed spots now begin to appear on different parts of the hands of
the domestics employed in milking, and sometimes on the wrists, which
quickly run on to suppuration, first assuming the appearance of the
small vesications produced by a burn. Most commonly they appear about
the joints of the fingers, and at their extremities; but whatever
parts are affected, if the situation will admit, these superficial
suppurations put on a circular form, with their edges more elevated
than their centre, and of a colour distantly approaching to blue.
Absorption takes place, and tumours appear in each axilla. The system
becomes affected--the pulse is quickened; and shiverings succeeded by
heat, with general lassitude and pains about the loins and limbs,
with vomiting, come on. The head is painful, and the patient is now
and then even affected with delirium. These symptoms, varying in
their degrees of violence, generally continue from one day to three
or four, leaving ulcerated sores about the hands, which, from the
sensibility of the parts, are very troublesome, and commonly heal
slowly, frequently becoming phagedenic, like those from whence they
sprung. The lips, nostrils, eyelids, and other parts of the body, are
sometimes affected with sores; but these evidently arise from their
being heedlessly rubbed or scratched with the patient's infected
fingers. No eruptions on the skin have followed the decline of the
feverish symptoms in any instance that has come under my inspection,
one only excepted, and in this case a very few appeared on the arms:
they were very minute, of a vivid red colour, and soon died away
without advancing to maturation; so that I cannot determine whether
they had any connection with the preceding symptoms.

Thus the disease makes its progress from the Horse to the nipple of
the Cow